On Wednesday, the LA Times reported that LA County would begin working on their new solution to jammed freeways: toll lanes (full article here – http://tinyurl.com/677fthx)
My Response:
Our Mayor is a simpleton. The times notes “Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other officials on Wednesday hailed the project as a major improvement to L.A.’s clogged freeway system.” Anything is an improvement when you’re at rock bottom. That’d be equivalent to if a parent hailed their comatose child waking up and using heroine as “an improvement” because “at least the kid isn’t comatose anymore.” No, simple-minded parent, both are terrible ideas. The only way you could call this a “major improvement” is because LA’s freeway system is the worst in the world.
It’s most definitely not the best (or only) solution to jammed freeways, but the real solution costs money, time and social restructuring. As history has shown, bureaucrats have an inability to think outside of the box. Plus, most of Los Angeles’ officials are liberal so they’d rather just tax hard working people (more) thank come up with viable long-term solutions.
I’m also infuriated. I payed taxes for those roads to be built and I currently pay taxes for them to be maintained. I go to work in a car which I pay registration fees up the yin-yang (both to the government and to private companies) and then I work for my money. Once that money comes in, I use it to pay for gas.
I will not pay to use a freeway just because the city and it’s liberal bureaucrats (who I’m sure will travel for free on these toll lanes, but that’s neither here nor there) don’t want to work on a long term solution.
The only good news this announcement brings is that it finally validates what common sense has said for the longest time: that diamond lanes are a failure and were an imbecilic idea to begin with.
Farm Grown Cynicism 